During his January 2014 State of the Union address Obama announced the creation of a new financial product that would allow American workers, those without access to retirement accounts anyway, to directly participate in the U.S. Treasury's debt ponzi on a tax-deferred basis. The accounts were cleverly named MyRA and were intended to be a substitute for people who didn't have access to an employee-sponsored 401k...with one little catch...money deposited in the accounts could only be invested in U.S. government bonds. Here's an excerpt from Obama's speech at the time:

Let’s do more to help Americans save for retirement. Today, most workers don’t have a pension. A Social Security check often isn’t enough on its own. And while the stock market has doubled over the last five years, that doesn’t help folks who don’t have 401ks. That’s why, tomorrow, I will direct the Treasury to create a new way for working Americans to start their own retirement savings: MyRA. It’s a new savings bond that encourages folks to build a nest egg. MyRA guarantees a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in. And if this Congress wants to help, work with me to fix an upside-down tax code that gives big tax breaks to help the wealthy save, but does little to nothing for middle-class Americans. Offer every American access to an automatic IRA on the job, so they can save at work just like everyone in this chamber can...

To summarize, a MyRA was, more or less, an IRA without the investing flexibility as you could only invest in a massive government-sponsored ponzi scheme.

Shockingly, as the New York Times points out today, the accounts turned out to be a massive disaster costing taxpayers $70 million, or roughly 2x the amount of money that was invested in the 20,000 accounts that were actually opened and funded.

President Barack Obama ordered the creation of the so-called starter accounts three years ago, and they became available at the end of 2015. Since then, about 20,000 accounts have been opened, with participants contributing a total of $34 million, according to the Treasury; the median account balance was $500. An additional 10,000 accounts whose owners have not contributed to them have been opened.

Jovita Carranza, the United States treasurer, said in a statement that demand for the accounts was not high enough to justify the expense. The program has cost $70 million since 2014, according to the Treasury, and would cost $10 million a year in the future.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, this is yet another component of the 'Obama legacy' that taxpayers will no longer have to pour millions of their hard-earned cash into propping up as the Trump administration has just announced that the program was axed last Friday.

An Obama-era program that created savings accounts to help more people put away money for retirement is being shut down by the Treasury Department, which deemed the program too expensive.

The 30,000 participants in the program, known as myRA and intended for people who did not have access to workplace savings plans, were sent an email on Friday morning alerting them of the closing. Participants were informed that they could roll the money into a Roth individual retirement account, the Treasury Department said.

Really surprising that people didn't want to open a really restrictive IRA substitute where proceeds could only be invested in a ponzi scheme...

Comments

While some of you are whining, Trump is dismantling the Obama legacy one step at a time."Russians"<--------------------------------- Look ---------------------------------------> "squirrel"Standard Disclaimer: Not fast enough for my liking, but to each his own.

At least Trump gives us something good to go along with each crappy thing he gives us. With O'bomb-a it was more like 100 shitty things per one good thing. Had Shitlery been elected, it would be all shit sandwich (no bread), all the time.

In case you have not noticed - nothing Trump has tried to get thru Congress has made it; and future prospects seem dismal. Oh wait - you are talking about all of his tweets - yes, he has given us a lot of thoes!

That's congress, not trump. they are working against him (keeping the appearance of teamwork and alliance, but their actions tell the opposite story). remember: many of these congressman RAN on repealing obamacare....then voted against it.

"many of these congressman RAN on repealing obamacare....then voted against it."On the contrary, there hasn't been a full repeal offered. Everything came with repeal and replace garbage attached, or partial repeal. Stop playing political games and do a full repeal.

"MCain ran on repealing Obamacare. Then the lying sack of shit voted for it."Again, it wasn't a full repeal. It was a partial repeal. If you think about it, he actually did the Republican party a favor. Either repeal it entirely or allow Obamacare to fail on it's own. Don't do a half-assed repeal... then the responsibility lies with you when Obamacare still goes down in flames.Full repeal or nothing.

He is making Congresd look worse, which means exposing it as it is, a bit, even this "Republican", what ever that means, Congress. That is a good thing.He doesnt care about them. He doesn't need them. He us, a bit, rude to them. He keeps throwing their work back to them. ......I, like that.

That downvote proves we still have morons reading ZH.They've been trying for this since 2010 with the Bingaman / Kerry 'Automatic IRA' bill forcing employers that don't have pension plans to contribute to a mandated account, forcing investors to buy .gov bonds.Nationalization (confiscation) of IRAs is the goal. Trump smacking it down should tell you something.

Truly disgusting, isn't it, that Obama would tout the program as a chance to invest retirement money into a booming stock market even though the investments were restricted to bonds at all time low yields.So glad he is gone from 1600 Pennsylvania.

Obunghole was just another shuck and jive huckster that are "a dime a dozen" in enclaves like Shitcago or Chiraq, Baltimore Murderland, East You're A Saint Now Louis and other liberal shitholes around the nation.

Obama awards BLM leaders and his banker friends like Buffet with medals while Trump awards heroes: Today at the White House, President Donald J. Trump will award the Medal of Honor to former Specialist Five James C. McCloughan, U.S. Army. McCloughan will receive the Medal of Honor for distinguished actions during 48 hours of close-combat fighting against enemy forces near Don Que, Vietnam, from May 13 to 15, 1969. McCloughan, then 23 years old, voluntarily risked his life on nine separate occasions to rescue wounded and disoriented comrades. He suffered wounds from shrapnel and small arms fire on three separate occasions, but refused medical evacuation to stay with his unit, and continued to brave enemy fire to rescue, treat, and defend wounded Americans.

Take the $70mil from Obama and his book deal and every other shit-bag that earned a salary or got a bonus from this scam. Clawback should become a bitch-slap to all of these political 'p(i)eces' of feces...

I find it baffling that anyone would hold any credence in Obama, especially in economic affairs, the guy is an absolute retard as was his administration as it relates to economics and society. Also, I hear a lot of banter from the lib press about the Republican failure to pass a repeal, claiming that they were unable to fix the braindead Obamacare. Hell, the repubs fingerprints aren't even on that dumb shit legislation, despite not passing for revisions. This just shows what absolute idiots the libs are, good lord! Off course I'm including Benedict Arnold 'McStain' in that list too!

anyone stupid enough to invest in an banker owned bama scheme deserves to lose their money..if I were an investor, I would get out of bitcoin and stocks in the very near future... an acquaintance told me that obama got us out of a depression...I said obama spent ten trillion dollars, and I look around and see nothing has changed except the banks are richer, the stock market is a bubble, and there are still no more jobs...that did not go over well lol